To quote experts, "This was one of the most powerful recorded earthquakes … and the energy released suddenly by this violent slide was the equivalent of 32 billion tons of TNT. The quake unleashed 30 percent more energy than the whole US consumes in a year. A massive hurricane would have to rage for two full months to release as much energy as this earthquake unleashed in seconds." Even President Bush felt compelled to compare this devastation with that of what his predecessors had wrought on Hiroshima.

While it is not for us to rationalise why such events occur, it will not perhaps be wrong to ask why the people and the countries affected by the tsunami could not have been warned of the impending disaster. Those who know assert that thousands might have escaped death, had warnings reached countries such as Sri Lanka, India or Maldives, before the tsunami struck. Why is it that not even the facilities available with Japan were exploited? Japan has a long history of tsunami (the name is Japanese in origin) and uses a warning system comprising of a network of seismic stations and water-borne sensors to issue a warning within three minutes of a quake. It is perhaps that we took nature for granted.

But many of the lives lost could have been saved. Geographer Robert Chen and seismologists Arthur Lerner-Lamand and Leonardo Seeber, writing in the Los Angeles Times on December 30 expose the reality when they say, "The astounding tragedy in the Indian Ocean is not just a human disaster of unbearable magnitude. Nor is it a matter of fate. It is the consequence of years of underinvestment in the scientific and technical infrastructure needed to reduce the vulnerability of developing countries to natural and environmental calamity." What would have been the cost of a simple tracking system that would have provided some degree of advance warning of the danger? A handful of such buoys (costing $250,000 each) could have gathered vital information that might have saved many of the more than 170,000 people who perished in the tsunami's aftermath.

Reportedly, the progress of the tsunami was picked up by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PSWC) in Hawaii and relayed to the US military base at Diego Garcia, but this information was not disseminated due to the absence of any arrangements on this matter with the countries of this region. This defies common sense. When countries can be occupied and thousands killed without any formal sanction, what prevents countries, possessing the necessary wherewithal to detect the developments of an impending disaster, to share information that might help save thousands of lives?

Warning systems have been built off the coasts of Japan and California, and not off the coast of Indonesia or Sri Lanka or Somalia -- or Bangladesh. It is argued that tsunamis are rare occurrences in this region and as such no warning system is deemed necessary in this area. Facts belie this contention since scientists contend that this is the most volatile region susceptible to severe quakes due to the existence of colliding zones that produce the vast majority of tsunami waves. Scientists' warnings on possible catastrophe around the Sumatra coast had also fallen on deaf ears.

The world mobilised to render support, in most cases at individual levels like the Swedes, whose per capita contribution from private donations for the victims exceeds that of any other country. But the money promised so far by the international community is in the region of what is spent in a week to prosecute the war in Iraq -- much more is being spent to kill than to save. Disappointing have been the responses from the affluent Muslim countries of which only Saudi Arabia has pledged 30 million USD and Kuwait two million. But, despicable as it may sound, some countries are trying to exploit the miseries of this calamity, for political and strategic gains. Words like "the tsunami was a great opportunity for us" coming from the mouth of the new US Secretary of State, display an utter lack of sensitivity.

We cannot prevent such disasters, but as the saying goes in military parlance "pre-warned is to be pre-armed." The waves caught the people of South and Southeast Asia unawares. The UN Secretary General's comments put the issue in perspective. He said recently, "It's not enough to pick up the pieces. We must draw on every lesson we can to avoid such catastrophes in the future."

One of the lessons that must have come loud and clear is the dire need to create a network of information sharing that would necessitate the Indian Ocean to be brought within the orbit of natural disaster forecasting system. Of also urgent need is establishing a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean, like the one in the Pacific, set up after a 1960 quake in Chile triggered a wave along Japan's coast that killed more than 100 people. The call by UN officials to the rich nations, to spend ten percent of their emergency aid budget on cutting disaster risk through measures such as tsunami early warning system, is thus very timely and appropriate.

The Bangladesh government's decision to link up the country with the global disaster forecasting system under its Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme (CDMP) has not come a day too soon. However, given our vulnerability to natural disasters, one would have thought that the networking in the age of globalisation should have been already in place.

Bangladesh has escaped unscathed from the tsunami disaster, this time. We are in the most disaster-prone area, and in addition to the recent tidal wave, our susceptibilities to various natural catastrophes are great. It is only with an integrated system of early warnings, regionally and globally, would we be able to mitigate the effects of natural calamities.

This is where SAARC must involve itself more robustly in devising ways and means and put the arrangement in place, sooner rather than later.

The author is Editor, Defense and Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.